In recent years, electronic devices such as digital cameras, portable music players and electronic readers (eReaders) have become popular, due in part to improvements in memory storage capacity and faster processors incorporated in these devices. The popularity of mobile devices such as mobile phones, which provide a subscriber of a mobile service provider (e.g., Verizon Wireless™) with means to communicate with others using voice, SMS, electronic mail services, and Internet data services has also increased. Mobile devices with Internet data service also allow subscribers the ability to browse web pages, use web applications, make purchases, and share information using their mobile devices.
This increased access to the Internet and web-based applications has also increased the popularity of quickly viewing information such as pictures, messages and other information via mobile devices with Internet data service. However, users of mobile devices have been limited to being able to post and share information using their mobile devices to information that is stored on the memory of the mobile device and not information that is stored on other electronic devices. For example, if a digital camera user would like to share a picture taken from the digital camera, the user is required to connect the digital camera to a computer having the appropriate input and software for the camera, download the picture from the memory of the camera to the memory of the computer, connect the computer to the Internet, due to the electronic device lacking a keyboard or other versatile input form, and post the picture to a website for viewing.
In this scenario, the user may need to use a computer with the appropriate input and software in order to connect to the Internet and post pictures. This multi-step procedure may result in a delay in sharing information until the user is near a computer with the appropriate inputs and software. Therefore, there is a need to allow a user to remotely access his/her electronic device such as, for example, a camera to upload photos on the Internet.
Furthermore, with the increased mobile network data usage, there is an increased need to monitor and adjust data usage and wireless network data plans.
In particular, there is a need for a simple and secure manner for allowing the user of the electronic device to monitor data usage, configure, and/or control the electronic device from a remote terminal via wireless data communication with the electronic device.